I  believe  them  incapable,  for  many  reasons,  of  properly  controlling 
public  affairs,  bat  I  do  believe  the  mi  capab  e  of  making  valuable 
citizens  under  the  wiser  control  of  the  whites.  My  solution  of  the 
problem  is  simply,  “Hands  off.”  Let  no  man  be  afraid  that  if  the 
Northern  people  cease  their  interference  the  negroes  will  be  driven 
to  the  wall.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  your  interference  that  causes  or 
aggravates  whatever  of  trouble  is  inflicted  upon  them. 


SPEECH 

OF 

SENATOR  Z.  B.  VANCE, 

OF  NORTH  CAROLINA, 

ON 

THE  NEGRO  QUESTION, 

r 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  \ 

SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

% 

ON 


Thursday,  January  30,  1890. 


! 


/ 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


* 

i 


: 


p  3.  ^7 


SPEECH 


OP 

SENATOR  Z .  B .  VANCE. 


Mr.  VANCE.  Mr.  President,  in  accordance  with  the  notice  which  I 
have  heretofore  given,  I  ask  leave  to  make  a  few  remarks  on  the  bill 
introduced  by  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  [Mr.  Butler]. 

The  VICE-PRESIDENT.  If  there  be  no  further  morning  business 
that  order  is  closed,  and  the  Chair  lays  before  the  Senate  the  bill  (S. 
1121)  to  provide  for  the  emigration  of  persons  of  color  from  the  South¬ 
ern  States. 

Mr.  VANCE.  Mr.  President,  one  of  the  earliest  recorded  utter¬ 
ances  of  inspiration  is,  that  the  sins  of  the  fathers  are  visited  upon  the 
children.  This  is  another  way  of  saying  that  the  mistakes  of  one 
generation  endure  to  plague  another. 

Several  hundred  years  ago  this  fair  land  of  ours,  which  it  would  seem 
God  had  specially  intended  for  the  chosen  seat  of  liberty  and  the  noblest 
development  of  man,  was  desecrated  by  the  introduction  of  human 
slavery.  The  serpent  thus  entered  into  our  pc  litical  Eden.  The  great 
forests  which  covered  the  face  of  the  earth  called  for  labor  to  remove 
them,  for  more  labor  than  the  slowly  coming  immigration  of  the  free 
races  afforded.  The  morals  of  the  age  j  ustified  the  holding  of  barbarous 
races  in  bondage.  The  favorite  place  for  obtaining  bondsmen  was  the 
African  coast.  So  desirable  did  the  supplying  of  the  newly  discovered 
islands  and  continents  of  the  West  with  cheap  labor  appear,  that  old 
John  Hawkins  was  knighted  by  Queen  Elizabeth,  as  much  for  his  suc¬ 
cessful  introduction  of  a  cargo  of  slaves  into  the  West  Indies,  as  for  his 
exploits  against  the  Spaniards.  Even  so  great  aud  good  a  man  as  Las 
Casas,  the  Spanish  apostle  to  the  Indians,  once  advocated  the  introduc¬ 
tion  African  slavery. 

First  and  foremost  in  this  calamitous  and  iniquitous  traffic  was  New 
England.  In  fact,  so  anxious  were  the  good  people  of  those  colonies 
for  slaves  that  they  reduced  to  bondage  the  native  Indians  whom  they 
captured  in  war,  and,  not  unfrequently,  those  wicked  people  of  their 
own  race  and  blood  who  were  guilty  of  differing  from  them  in  relig¬ 
ious  opinions. 

The  tobacco-growing  colonies  of  the  South  soon  followed  suit  in  the 
importation  of  African  slaves, and  early  found  how  profitable  this  cheap 
and  involuntary  labor  was  in  the  raising  of  their  great  staple.  The  in¬ 
troduction  of  the  cultivation  and  uses  of  cotton  soon  gave  a  further  im¬ 
petus  to  slaveholding,  and  made  the  chief  prosperity  of  all  the  South¬ 
ern  regions  to  depend  mainly  upon  this  enforced  labor.  Whilst  the 
want  of  profitable  returns  gradually  lessened  the  hold  of  the  North 
upon  slavery,  its  great  profits  constantly  increased  that  hold  upon  the 
South. 

The  stony  and  sterile  fields  of  New  England  called  for  manufactures 


X  r 

XV  i 


4 


and  commerce.  That  commerce  consisted  very  largely  in  purchasing 
slaves  on  the  African  coast,  and  selling  them  to  Southern  planters. 
Thus  their  interests  constantly  drifted  the  Northern  and  Southern 
people  apart  in  regard  to  African  slavery.  After  a  time  it  ceased  to  exist 
altogether  in  the  North,  by  reason  of  emancipation  laws  made  to  take 
eff  ct  at  fixed  periods,  and  by  their  sales  to  their  Southern  neighbors. 
By  this  time  the  wrongfulness  of  holding  slaves  fully  dawned  upon  the 
conscience  of  the  Northern  people.  Its  prickings  became  so  active  that 
they  not  only  deemed  it  a  sin  to  hold  a  slave  themselves,  but  to  permit 
anybody  else  to  hold  one,  even  though  there  was  no  responsibility  what¬ 
ever  upon  them  for  the  transgression. 

They  even  went  so  far  in  obeying  the  dictates  of  conscience,  that  they 
did  not  hesitate  to  stand  up  boldly  in  the  sight  of  God,  with  the  pur¬ 
chase  money  in  their  pockets,  and  denounce  the  vengeance  of  heaven 
against  their  Southern  neighbors  for  holding  on  to  the  negro  which  they 
themselves  had  sold  them. 

Every  requisite  to  the  effectual  working  of  a  good  conscience  was 
present.  Slaveholding  was  not  only  unprofitable,  as  has  been  said, 
upon  their  soil  and  in  their  climate,  but  the  lucrative  trade  of  supply¬ 
ing  the  Southern  planters  was  abolished  by  the  Constitution.  In  ad¬ 
dition  to  this  their  sense  of  rectitude  was  uupardonably  offended  by 
the  contemplation  of  the  well-doing  of  their  neighbors.  Of  course,  men 
who  burnt  witches,  banished  or  enslaved  Quakers,  and  had  made  for¬ 
tunes  by  the  horrors  of  “the  middle  passage,7’  could  not  be  expected 
to  tolerate  any  longer  the  ungodly  thing  which  brought  fortunes  to  Vir¬ 
ginia  and  Carolina  planters.  With  ever  increasin  ;  bitterness  this  con¬ 
scientious  crusade  was  kept  up  with  an  extravagance  of  language  which 
scrupled  not  to  denounce  the  Constitution  itself;  which  respected  the 
slaveholders’  rights  under  State  laws,  as  “a  league  with  death  and  a 
covenant  with  hell.”  The  inevitable  result  is  fresh  in  our  recollection. 
It  ultimately  led  to  civil  war  in  which  more  than  a  million  lives  were 
lost  and  more  than  three  billions  of  property  destroyed,  and  as  much 
of  indebtedness  incurred.  The  slaves  were  set  free. 

Those  of  us  in  the  South  who  had  deprecated  the  war  and  deplored 
the  agitation  which  led  to  it,  as  we  sat  in  the  ashes  of  our  own  homes  and 
scraped  ourselves  with  the  potsherds  of  desolation,  yet  consoled  our¬ 
selves  for  the  slaughter  of  our  kindred  and  the  devastation  of  our  fields 
by  the  reflection  that  this,  at  least,  was  the  end;  that  the  great  original 
wrong  committed  by  our  fathers  had  at  last  been  atoned  for;  that  the 
Union  having  been  declared  indissoluble,  and  slavery  forever  abolished, 
the  one  great  stumbling  block  and  stone  of  offense  was  removed,  and 
the  people  of  these  American  States,  henceforth  homogeneous,  could 
pursue  their  great  destiny  harmoniously  and  fraternally. 

How  little  we  knew  the  temper  of  the  victors  in  that  great  struggle. 
We  made  no  calculation  for  the  fact  that  the  necessities  of  party  su¬ 
premacy  would  lead  men  as  far  as  even  the  prickings  of  conscience  for 
an  unprofitable  sin  had  done.  No  sooner  had  we  fairly  witnessed  the 
end  of  hostilities  before  acts  of  Congress  were  passed  directing  the  sub¬ 
version  of  all  law  and  civil  government  in  the  States  of  the  South,  under 
cover  of  which  they  were  divided  into  military  districts,  over  each  of 
which  was  placed  a  general  of  the  Army,  supported  by  sufficient  troops. 
To  these  generals  and  their  bayonets  was  committed  the  task  of  form¬ 
ing  governments  for  the  people  of  ihese  overthrown  States.  This  they 
did  by  holding  elections  under  military  coutrol,  by  suppressing  the  vote 
of  every  free  white  man  in  those  States,  who,  having  at  any  time  taken 
an  oath  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  had  aiterwards 


o 


done  any  act  in  aid  of  the  rebellion,  and  by  thrusting  with  military  force 
upon  the  ballot-box  the  entire  mass  of  emancipated  slaves,  to  whom  the 
right  to  vote  had  been  given  by  no  law,  human  or  divine,  known  to  our 
federative  system.  By  the  constitution  thus  forced  upon  the  Southern 
people  the  negroes  were  made  voters  and  invested  with  the  like  privi¬ 
leges  in  all  respects  as  the  white  people. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  had  in  like  manner  been  so 
amended  as  to  forbid  the  States  from  making  any  discrimination  against 
the  negro  race,  or  in  any  manner  impairing  the  rights  which  had  thus 
been  conferred  upon  them.  Again,  we  in  the  South  thought  we  had 
arrived  at  the  end  of  our  troubles  connected  with  the  negro  question. 
Surely,  we  reasoned,  as  the  colored  man  is  now  free,  as  he  is  made  by 
law,  State  and  Federal,  equal  with  the  white  man  in  all  respects,  and 
has  been  given  the  ballot  to  protect  himself  in  these  rights,  surely  the 
matter  will  now  be  at  rest.  We  can  close  the  chasm  which  the  agita¬ 
tion  about  him  has  created  between  us  and  our  Northern  neighbors. 
Again,  were  we  sadly  mistaken.  Alter  forty  years  of  bitter  agitation, 
four  years  of  bloody  war,  and  near  a  quarter  of  a  century  more  of  trial 
under  the  new  order  of  things,  the  negro  again  ‘‘bobs  up  serenely,’ ’ 
and  for  his  sake  we  are  to-day  threatened  not  only  with  a  political  agi¬ 
tation  sufficiently  disastrous  witliiu  itself,  but  with  a  servile  war  whose 
weapons  shall  be  the  midnight  torch  and  the  assassin’s  dagger,  and 
whose  victims  shall  be  sleeping  women  and  children. 

This  agitation  and  this  threatened  war  is  to  arise  from  one  of  two 
facts:  Either  the  friends  of  the  negro  in  the  North  are  disappointed  be¬ 
cause  their,  well-laid  schemes  of  reconstruction  failed  to  secure  the  Re¬ 
publican  party  any  aid  from  the  Southern  States,  or  because  their  rea¬ 
sonable  expectations  and  hopes  as  to  the  colored  man’s  capacity  tor 
helping  himself  and  forgoverning  others  have  been  grievously  wrecked. 

The  Senator  from  Kansas,  in  his  speech  a  few  days  ago,  indignantly 
denied  the  former  assertion,  and  put  the  action  of  his  friends  altogether 
upon  the  high  ground  of  benevolent  patriotism.  He  was  so  candid  in 
admitting  the  fault  of  his  people  for  the  introduction  of  slavery  into 
this  country,  and  for  its  retention  in  the  North  until  it  ceased  to  be 
profitable,  that  I  was  in  hopes  to  hear  him  admit  with  equal  candor 
that  the  whole  scheme  of  reconstruction  was  intended  for  partisan  Re¬ 
publican  purposes.  I  concede  this  to  him,  however,  and  candidly  ad¬ 
mit  that  he  does  so  believe  and  that,  perhaps,  he  is  the  only  saue  man 
in  Europe  or  America  who  is  of  this  opinion.  Taking  it,  then,  upon 
his  ground,  is  it  any  wonder  that  the  truth  compelled  him  to  say: 

But  it  can  no  longer  be  denied  that  suffrage  and  citizenship  have  hitherto  not 
justified  the  anticipations  of  those  by  whom  they  were  conferred.  They  have 
not  been  effective  in  the  hands  of  the  freedman,  either  for  attack  or  defense. 

In  other  words,  here  is  a  frank  admission  that  twenty-five  years  of 
freedom  and  nearly  as  much  of  citizenship  has  proven  a  lamentable 
failure.  It  is  true  that  he  says  the  whites  in  the  South  are  to  blame 
for  it;  that  they  have  employed  force,  violence,  and  fraud,  of  which  I 
will  say  more  hereafter.  I  will  only  now  make  this  suggestion:  If  it 
be  true  that  in  States  where  they  largely  outnumber  the  whites  they 
are  either  intimidated  from  voting  or  are  defrauded  in  the  counting  of 
their  votes,  is  not  that  a  strong  argument  against  their  supposed  ca¬ 
pacity  lor  self-government?  Are  a  people  fit  to  govern  themselves  and 
others  who  would  suffer  themselves  thus  to  be  treated?  Is  any  man 
worthy  of  freedom  who  requires  constantly  to  be  tutored  and  protected 
in  its  exercise?  Is  a  man  fitted  to  run  a  race  who  has  to  be  held  up 
in  order  that  he  may  walk?  I  have,  indeed,  heard  of  a  beef  which  had 


6 


to  be  held  up  in  order  to  be  knocked  down  to  fill  an  army  contract, 
but  I  have  not  known  men  fit  for  freedom  who  would  be  deterred  from 
its  exercise  in  the  face  of  inferior  numbers.  Is  there  anything  in  the 
sentiment  of  the  poet  who  says: 

Hereditary  bondsmen,  know  ye  not 
Who  would  be  free,  themselves 
Must  strike  the  blow? 

The  Senator  says — 

That  no  other  people  on  the  face  of  this  earth  have  ever  submitted  to  the 
wrongs,  the  injustice  which  have  been  for  twenty-five  years  heaped  upon  the 
colored  men  of  the  South,  without  revolution  and  blood. 

More  than  once  this  is  repeated.  It  constitutes  the  burden  of  his 
speech,  around  which  is  clustered  the  brightest  display  of  rhetorical 
pyrotechnics  ever  employed  to  conceal  a  paucity  of  ideas  by  the  gor¬ 
geousness  of  phraseology.  This  rhetorical  display  across  the  forensic 
heavens  reminded  me  forcibly  of  an  astronomer’s  description  of  the  re¬ 
markable  tenuity  of  the  tail  of  a  certain  comet.  He  said  that  its 
length  was  a  hundred  million  miles  as  it  stretched  athwart  the  skies — 
that  its  breadth  was  50,000  miles — and  yet  the  solid  matter  which 
it  contained  could  be  condensed  and  transported  in  a  one-horse 
cart.  I  listened  and  listened  with  the  greatest  entertainment  to  that 
speech,  and  searched  and  wondered  where  the  remedy  for  the  evil  was 
and  when  it  would  be  announced,  and  when  I  should  see  the  solid 
matter  of  the  illumination.  Suddenly,  before  the  light  expired  and 
we  were  left  in  darkness,  he  announced  that  the  solution  was  justice, 
which,  however  sententious  it  might  be,  was  about  as  definite  and  real 
as  the  twinklings  which  remain  under  the  closed  eyelids  after  the  with¬ 
drawal  of  a  fierce  light. 

Justice,  as  he  explains  it,  means  our  submission  to  negro  rule.  Hav¬ 
ing  submitted  to  this  for  so  long  a  time  as  he  thinks  would  be  fair, 
should  it  prove  a  fa  lure  he  graciously  promises  that  he  will  then  con¬ 
sult  with  us  about  some  other  solution  of  the  problem  ! 

What  are  the  facts  which  support  this  grandiose  slander  of  an  entire 
people?  What  wrongs  and  injustice  have  been  done  by  the  Southern 
people  to  these  negroes  that  call  for  the  “use  of  the  torch  and  the  dag¬ 
ger?  ”  They  have  been  given  the  right  of  suffrage,  not  by  the  free 
action  of  the  Southern  whites,  I  admit,  but  at  least  by  their  reluctant 
assent.  Since  their  admission  to  citizenship  they  have  been  elected  to 
both  branches  of  Congress  and  have  occupied  almost  every  position  un¬ 
der  State  authority.  They  have  controlled  entire  States,  counties,  and 
municipalities,  and  in  every  instance  their  rule  was  marked  oy  failure 
and  ruin.  It  was  a  war  against  property,  intelligence,  and  respecta¬ 
bility.  The  few  years  of  their  misrule  in  the  South  will  be  forever 
remembered  in  our  history  for  their  corruption  and  retrogression,  and 
will  constitute  a  damnable  blot  on  the  memory  of  those  who  authorized 
it,  and  who  looked  on  with  complacency  so  long  as  the  thieves  were 
Republicans  and  the  victims  were  Democrats. 

Whilst  ever  they. could  hold  the  throttled  State  in  the  Republican 
ranks,  and  send  mongrels  to  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives 
to  strengthen  Republican  hands  against  “  the  cowardly  and  degraded 
element  in  the  North  that  sympathized  with  treason,”  not  a  word  of 
protest  was  heard  from  that  entire  party  of  justice  and  modest  right¬ 
eousness.  But  as  soon  as  this  corrupt  and  incompetent  rule  had  wrought 
its  inevitable  results  and  had  been  overthrown  by  the  union  of  all  the 
best  elements  in  the  South,  aided  by  the  superior  knowledge  of  the 


7 


superior  race,  then  began  the  complaints  of  Southern  outrages  and  in¬ 
justice.  It  is  all  very  well  to  deny  now  that  the  whole  object  of  recon¬ 
struction  was  partisan  advantage,  and  to  claim  that  the  motive  was 
patriotic.  It  is  but  the  natural  verification  of  the  saying  of  old  Samuel 
Johnston,  that  ”  patriotism  is  the  last  refuge  of  a  scoundrel.”  All  the 
world  knows  why  citizenship  was  given  to  the  negro  and  the  reason  of 
the  bitter  disappointment  which  is  everywhere  confessed  at  its  results. 

There  is  surely  here  no  outrage  against  the  negro  that  calls  for  revo¬ 
lution  and  blood.  The  wrong  was  against  the  white  man,  and  was  re¬ 
dressed  by  him  without  revolution.  In  obedience  to  the  Constitution 
the  Southern  States  admitted  the  colored  citizens  to  a  full  participation 
in  all  the  legal  rights  enjoyed  by  white  citizens.  They  were  placed  in 
the  jury-box,  commissioned  as  magistrates,  permitted  to  form  companies 
in  the  volunteer  militia,  duly  commissioned  and  armed.  School-houses 
were  built  for  them  and  normal  schools  established  for  the  education 
of  their  teachers,  whilst  the  school  fund  of  the  States  was  apportioned 
to  their  schools,  in  proportion  to  their  numbers,  with  all  possible  fair¬ 
ness.  Asylums  were  built  for  the  care  of  their  insane,  deaf,  dumb, 
and  blind,  wherein  they  receive  the  same  treatment  as  the  whites.  The 
taxes  for  all  this  were  levied  by  white  legislators  on  their  white  con¬ 
stituents,  who  paid  at  least  95  per  cent,  of  the  total  out  of  the  little 
which  the  negroes  and  carpet-baggers  had  lei t  them.  If  there  be  any 
wrong,  injustice,  in  all  this,  it  can  surely  be  seen  only  by  that  intel¬ 
lectual  vision  which,  “reaching  far  as  angels  ken,”  beholds  no  motives 
for  the  preservation  of  Kepublican  supremacy  in  reconstruction,  but 
only  patriotic  benevolence. 

Since  the  restoration  of  the  South  to  the  control  of  its  own  people 
the  progress  and  prosperity  of  the  negroes  have  been  as  great  as,  if  not 
greater  than,  in  any  other  country  where  his  race  exists.  His  increase 
in  numbers  has  been  phenomenal,  and  furnishes  ample  proof  that  he 
is  fed,  clothed,  and  sheltered.  The  decrease  of  the  death  rate,  of  crimi¬ 
nal  convictions,  and  of  illiteracy,  taken  with  the  gradual  and  unfailing 
increase  of  his  wealth,  which  is  abundantly  proven  by  the  statistics,  all 
give  the  lie  flatly  to  the  oft- repeated  story  of  oppression  and  wrong  un¬ 
der  which  he  suffered  or  is  said  to  suffer.  The  truth  is,  he  began  to 
prosper  when  the  whites  took  control.  Progress  for  him  would  have 
been  as  impossible  under  his  own  rule  as  it  was  for  the  whites.  Ten 
years  more  of  such  government  as  reconstruction  fixed  upon  the  South 
would  have  made  that  fairest  portion  of  the  American  continent  a  howl¬ 
ing  wilderness.  In  short,  it  would  have  been  Africanized,  a  fate  which 
even  the  Senator  from  Kansas  says  is  “not  desirable;”  which,  taken 
in  connection  with  his  opening  remarks  on  the  danger  of  “blood-poi¬ 
soning”  by  the  adulteration  of  races,  means  much  more  than  appears 
on  the  surface.  The  best  thing,  then,  that  could  have  been  done  for 
the  negro  was  that  which  was  done  when  the  management  of  public 
affairs  was  taken  from  inexperienced  and  incapable  hands  and  placed 
w  ith  the  natural  and  competent  rulers  of  the  land. 

Where,  then,  I  ask  again,  does  the  outrage  on  the  colored  man  come  in? 

The  Senator  makes  no  complaint  of  the  causes  wThich  led  to  the  over¬ 
throw  of  reconstruction.  He  says: 

Until  1877  the  unstable  fabric  erected  by  the  architects  of  reconstruction  was 
upheld  by  the  military  of  the  United  States,  and  when  this  was  withdrawn  the 
incongruous  edifice  toppled  headlong  and  vanished  away  as  the  baseless  fabric 
of  a  vision.  It  disappeared  in  cruel  and  ferocious  convulsions  which  form 
one  of  the  most  shameful  and  shocking  of  all  the  bloody  tragedies  of  history. 
The  attempt  to  reorganize  society  upon  the  basis  of  numbers  failed. 


8 


Perhaps  the  Senator  alludes  to  the  stealing  of  the  Presidency  by  his 
party,  which  happened  in  that  year  and  which,  though  both  shame¬ 
ful  and  shocking,  and  in  which  the  attempt  to  reorganize  society  on 
the  basis  of  numbers  did  to  a  certain  extent  fail,  I  did  not  know  was 
properly  characterized  as  a  bloody  tragedy. 

It  is,  however,  an  unequivocal  admission  that  the  reconstruction  edi¬ 
fice  was  unstable  and  incongruous — mild  terms  indeed  for  this  most 
infernal  episode  in  our  history;  that  it  was  upheld  alone  by  military 
power,  and  disappeared  when  that  power  was  withdrawn.  No  wrong 
upon  the  negro  appears  there.  It  seems  that  these  intolerable  outrages, 
to  which  no  other  people  on  earth  have  submitted  so  long,  are  supposed 
somehovv  to  exist  in  the  fact  that  the  overthrow  of  this  incongruous 
structure — the  creature  of  military  force — has  been  followed  by  the 
maintaining  on  the  part  of  the  whites  of  the  advantage  which  they 
gained  by  its  downfall.  ‘ 4  In  that  struggle  he  says  that  ed  u cation,  wealth, 
political  experience,  land-ownership  in  the  South,  all  conspired  against 
the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States,  and  that  they  emerged 
from  that  dreadful  conflict  in  full  possession  of  all  the  powers  of  the 
States,  and  no  serious  effort  has  been  made  to  deprive  them  of  their 
guilty  acquisition.  ”  I  beg  to  remind  the  Senator,  however,  that  many 
guilty  efforts  have  been  made  to  deprive  them  of  their  serious  acquisi¬ 
tion. 

But,  inasmuch  as  the  powers  of  the  States  are  recognized  by  the  Con¬ 
stitution,  it  is  strange  that  the  possession  of  them  by  their  citizens 
should  be  held  to  be  a  violation  of  the  Constitution. 

But  the  taking  and  keeping  possession  cf  the  powers  of  the  States 
seems  -to  be  the  wrong  inflicted  upon  the  colored  man.  The  gravamen 
of  that  wrong  is  that  the  negro  can  no  longer  send  here  Republican 
Senators  and  Representatives  from  the  South  and  the  votes  of  Repub¬ 
lican  electoral  colleges  to  aid  in  the  manufacture  of  Republican  Presi¬ 
dents.  There  are  many  errors  of  assumption  required  to  make  up  this 
supposed  wrong.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  assumed  that  the  vote  is  sup¬ 
pressed  on  the  ground  that  every  colored  man  is  a  Republican.  Next, 
it  is  assumed  that  every  colored  Republican  is  necessarily  incapable  of 
being  influenced  or  beguiled  by  the  arts  of  the  electioneerer,  and  will 
always  cast  his  ballot  for  the  Republican  nominees.  They  who  reason 
thus  go  to  the  census  tables  and  ascertain  the  number  of  negro  voters 
of  qualified  age,  the  number  of  white  voters  likewise,  and  then  estimate 
what  their  majorities  ought  to  be. 

The  discovery  of  a  colored  Democratic  vote  in  the  ballot-box  is  ac¬ 
cepted  as  priraa  facie  evidence  of  fraud.  If  those  majorities  are  not 
forthcoming,  they  conclude  that  the  vote  of  their  friends  has  been  sup¬ 
pressed.  They  forget  what  influences  even  one  portion  of  our  own  peo¬ 
ple  can  exert  over  another;  much  less  do  they  remember  how  much 
more  easily  the  united,  superior  race,  with  all  its  intelligence,  wealth, 
and  power,  can  influence  the  action  of  a  race  so  far  inferior  and  still  in 
the  shadow  of  the  bondage  from  which  they  have  been  withdrawn. 

Neither  has  it  entered  into  the  consideration  of  the  people  of  the  North 
to  place  any  stress  upon  the  fact  that  there  did  exist,  and  still  exists, 
between  the  former  owner  and  the  present  freedman  many  of  those 
kindly  and  controlling  relations  which  existed  between  master  and 
slave.  It  must  be  remembered  that,  in  addition  to  his  ignorance  and 
inexperience  of  affairs,  the  colored  man  still  leans  upon  and  looks  to 
his  former  master  for  direction  and  advice — universally  so  in  all  matters 
except  politics;  that  he  is  almost  always  either  the  tenant  or  the  em- 


9 


ploye  of  the  white  man,  and  that  white  man  belongs  to  a  race  which 
the  Senator  from  Kansas  says  is  the — 

Most  arrogant  and  rapacious,  the  most  exclusive  and  indomitable  in  history. 
It  is  the  conquering  and  unconquerable  race,  through  which  alone  man  has 
taken  possession  of  the  physical  and  moral  world.  To  our  race  humanity  is  in¬ 
debted  for  religion,  for  literature,  for  civilization.  It  has  a  genius  for  conquest, 
for  politics,  for  jurisprudence,  and  for  administration.  r  *  *  All  other  races 

have  been  its  enemies  or  its  victims. 

Is  it  possible  that  such  a  race  of  men  as  this  can  not  without  brutal 
violence  or  detestable  fraud  maintain  its  supremacy  over  such  a  race 
as  the  negro?  Is  it  statesmanlike  to  assume  that  it  can  legitimately 
have  no  influence,  exert  no  force  over  the  weaker  and  more  ignorant? 
Are  there  not  undisputed  facts  sufficient  to  justify  reasoning  men  every¬ 
where  in  doubting  the  truth  of  these  stories  of  outrage  and  wrong? 
For  example,  I  am  glad  to  say  that  North  Carolina  is  one  of  the  States 
in  the  South  where  there,  is  least  complaint  of  infringements  of  the  col¬ 
ored  man’s  rights,  either  at  the  ballot-box  or  in  the  courts  of  justice. 

The  State  of  Mississippi  is  one  of  the  States  of  the  South  where  the 
complaints  on  behalf  of  the  colored  man  are  loudest  and  most  vehement; 
yet  for  six  months  past  the  negroes  in  eastern  North  Carolina  have  been 
voluntarily  moving  at  the  rate  perhaps  of  three  or  four  thousand  per 
month  to  this  very  State  of  Mississippi.  They  are  not  going  to  Kan¬ 
sas  or  to  any  other  Northern  State,  but  to  Mississippi,  presumably  for 
the  purpose  of  having  their  votes  suppressed  and  of  being  slaughtered — 
to  Arkansas  and  to  Texas.  The  fact  is,  they  are  influenced  like  other 
•people,  by  the  great  economic  law  of  supply  and  demand.  For  two  or 
three  years  past  eastern  North  Carolina  has  suffered  from  a  failure  ol 
the  crops,  and  the  planters  of  Mississippi  are  offering  the  negroes  better 
wages  than  the  Carolina  planters  can  afford  to  pay,  and  the  chief  agents 
employed  by  the  Mississippians  for  effecting  their  contracts  are  intelli¬ 
gent  educated  negro  men.  many  of  them  preachers. 

Evidently  they  do  not  believe  these  stories  that  are  served  up  for  cam¬ 
paign,  political  purposes  here.  I  do  not  wish  to  be  misunderstood  in 
this  matter.  That  there  are  instances  of  mistreatment  and  occasionally 
of  cruelty  to  the  negroes  now  and  then  occurring  in  the  South  I  can¬ 
didly  admit  and  regret.  The  millennium  has  not  yet  arrived  in  the  land 
of  reconstruction;  the  reign  of  perfect  righteousness,  of  absolute  jus¬ 
tice,  has  not  yet  been  established  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon’s  line, 
though  of  course  it  is  iu  full  operation  just  north  of  that  imaginary 
division.  There  there  is  no  suppression  of  the  popular  vote  by  gerry¬ 
mander  or  otherwise;  there  there  is  no  purchase  of  the  floating  vote  in 
blocks  of  five,  no  ejectment  of  colored  children  from  white  schools  or 
colored  men  from  theaters  and  barber-chairs,  and  where  we  may  hope 
that,  in  the  process  of  time  and  in  the  spread  of  intelligence  and  in¬ 
creased  appreciation  of  the  virtues  of  the  negroes,  one  black  man  may 
soon  be  sent  to  Congress  from  the  North;  that  some  railroad  attorney 
or  millionaire  will  make  room  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  lor  the 
colored  brother;  that  one  colored  postmaster  for  a  white  town  may  be 
appointed  in  the  North;  that  in  the  State  of  Kansas,  the  soil  so  prolific 
in  friendships  for  the  colored  man,  a  respectable  negro,  duly  nominated 
on  the  Kepublican  ticket,  may  receive  the  full  vote  of  his  party,  and  not 
be  scratched  almost  to  the  point  of  defeat  by  those  who  love  him,  as  he 
was  in  Topeka;  that  one  accomplished  colored  man  may  be  sent  abroad 
to  represent  his  country  in  some  other  land  than  Hayti  or  Liberia. 

Let  us  hope  even  that  the  great  Kepublican  party  of  the  North  may 
find  the  colored  man  fit  to  serve  his  country  in  some  other  region  than 


1 


10 


the  South  and  this  great  dumping-ground  of  political  dead-beats,  the 
District  oi  Columbia,  upon  whose  helpless  people  has  heretofore  been 
billeted,  in  all  the  offices  from  the  judiciary  down,  every  worn-out 
partisan  (or  whom  his  people  at  home  had  no  more  use.  Nay,  under 
the  appeals  against  the  injustice  of  suppressing  the  colored  vote  which 
we  daily  hear,  ir  would  be  a  rapture  of  hope  to  express  the  belief  that 
these  great  aposws  of  justice  would  re-tore  the  right  of  suffrage  to  the 
225,000  people  of  this  District,  from  whom  it  was  taken  on  the  well 
known  ground  that  the  negro  vote  was  about  to  prove  here  an  incon¬ 
venience.  It  might  be  replied,  technically,  that  the  injustice  of  sup¬ 
pressing  votes  depended  upon  the  color  of  the  voter,  and  that  it  was  not 
an  outrage  to  suppress  white  votes;  or,  again,  that  it  was  no  injustice 
to  the  franchise  to  suppress  the  vote  by  law  on  account  of  ignorance, 
nativity,  or  poverty,  as  so  long  prevailed  in  Rhode  Island  and  Massa¬ 
chusetts.  But  I  positively  deny  that  there  is  any  systematic,  authorized, 
or  official  interference  with  the  guarantied  rights' of  the  colored  man  in 
the  South! 

I  positively  aver  that  these  constitutional  obligations  concerning  the 
colored  people  are  observed  in  good  faith  and  that  all  individual  in¬ 
fringements  upon  them  are  as  much  deprecated  by  the  majority  of  our 
people  as  similar  violations  of  law  are  deprecated  in  the  North,  and 
their  perpetrators  are  punished  by  our  courts  with  much  more  good 
faith  and  promptitude  than  the  violators  of  the  fugitive-slave  laws 
weie  punished  in  the  North,  or  than  election  bribery  is  punished  to¬ 
day.  It  was  but  yesterday  that  we  were  told  in  this  Senate  Chamber 
the  story  of  how  a  great  criminal  in  behalf  of  the  Republican  party  had 
been  shielded  Irom  justice  by  the  connivance  of  his  party  friends,  (or 
the  ollense  of  debauching  and  attempting  to  debauch  the  purity  of  the 
ballot-box.  He  is  yet  at  large  and  dehant.  The  condition  of  the  South¬ 
ern  people  with  regard  to  crime  is  ample  proof  of  this.  In  criminal  sta¬ 
tistics  we  do  not  fear  to  compare  records  with  any  people.  In  the  cat- 
eS01T  personal  violence  I  admit  that  some  of  our  communities  are 
open  to  severe  criticism;  but  I  contend  that  the  records  will  show  that 
m  the  more  odious,  baser,  and  less  manly  crimes  many  of  the  Northern 
States  are  tar  ahead  of  anything  known  in  the  South. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  however,  the  negro  question  has  again  come  for¬ 
ward  to  vex  the  people  of  the  South,  and  has  to  be  met.  Whether  or 
not  they  are  treated  with  injustice  and  oppression,  it  does  not  matter 
to  those  men  or  that  party  who  expect  to  profit  by  the  agitation;  nor 
does  it  matter  whether  the  weal  of  the  negro  or  the  public  generally 
is  to  be  advanced  thereby;  that  is  not  their  object. 

The  ieal  motive  is  that  some  men  may  have  a  horse  to  ride  who 
would  otliei  wise  perhaps  have  to  walk.  The  negro  and  his  wrongs  or 
rights  will  never  be  quiet  so  long  as  there  is  a  white  man  to  ride  him. 
it  has  oiten  been  asserted  that  a  superior  and  an  inferior  race  which 
wi  not  amalgamate  can  not  live  together  under  the  same  government 
with  equal  rights  and  laws.  This  may  or  may  not  be  true. 

It  is  natural  to  suppose,  if  they  can  not  agree,  that  the  Stronger  will 
have  its  way  and  dominate  the  weaker;  but  there  is  one  proposition, 
Mr  I  resident,  of  which  you  may  rest  assured,  there  is  no  kind  of 
doubt:  the  stronger  will  never  submit  to  the  domination  of  the  weaker. 
Inis  might  as  well  be  set  down  as  res  ad  judicata. 

there  is  another  fact  that  may  be  noted  now  in  connection  with  it. 
lne  k  enator  irom  Kansas  let  fall  an  expression  which  I  regretted  ex¬ 
ceedingly  to  hear.  Prelacing  his  utterance  that  he  had  never  known 


11 


a  people  to  endure  such  wrongs  without  revolution  and  blood,  he 
said : 

The  South,  Mr.  President,  is  standing  upon  a  volcano,  the  South  is  sitting 
upon  a  safety-valve.  They  are  breeding  innumerable  John  Browns  and  Nat 
Turners.  Already  mutterings  of  discontent  by  hostile  organizations  are  heard. 
The  use  of  the  torch  and  the  dagger  is  advised. 

This  is  reasonably  construed  as  an  iuci  tation  to  the  work  of  murder  and 
arson,  and  although  he  says  that  he  “deplores  it,  ”  yet,  as  the  excuse  and 
justification  for  such  a  course  immediately  iollows,  it  is  open  to  the  con¬ 
struction  that  it  is  an  indirect  invitation  to  these  people  to  lay  our 
homes  in  ashes  while  we  sleep,  and  murder  unsuspecting  people. 

The  supposition  that  they  are  capable  of  such  atrocities,  it  seems  to 
me,  is  proof  positive  of  their  incapacity  for  civilized  government  and  the 
extraordinary  idea  of  justice  and  humanity  of  him  who  suggests  it. 
He  surely  does  not  know  anything  of  the  inflammable  nature  of  the 
negro  in  the  South  or  he  would  not  have  ventured  on  the  expression  of 
such  a  threat.  He  furthermore  told  us  in  this  connection  that  in  case 
such  a  calamity  came  upon  the  southern  people  as  a  servile  war,  attended 
with  whatever  horrors  it  might  be  waged,  we  need  look  for  no  help  from 
the  people  of  our  blood  in  the  North;  that  we  must  “  tread  the  ’wine 
press  alone.  ’  ’ 

If  he  speaks  truly  in  this,  he  passes  the  blackest  and  vilest  judgment 
upon  his  own  people  that  ever  politician  dared  utter. 

But,  Mr.  President,  I  do  not  believe  one  word  of  it.  As  the  negro 
race  that  was  born  and  reared  among  us  did  not  rise  up  to  do  us  harm 
in  the  hour  of  our  extremest  adversity,  even  for  the  great  boon  of  free¬ 
dom  and  amidst  the  most  tempting  incitements,  but  continued  faith¬ 
ful  to  their  masters  and  their  families  even  within  hearing  of  the  guns 
that  were  roaring  to  set  them  free,  so  I  do  not  believe  that  they  can  be 
thus  incited  to  attempt  it  now. 

They  have  more  of  State  and  sectional  pride  and  of  neighborly  affec¬ 
tion  for  the  people  among  whom  they  live  than  the  Senator  is  willing 
to  give  them  credit  for.  Nor  do  I  believe  that  what  he  has  said  about 
the  feeling  of  the  North  is  true;  on  the  contrary,  I  believe  as  firmly  as 
I  believe  in  the  gallantry,  the  courage,  and  all  of  the  noble  qualities  of 
the  great  race  to  which  I  belong,  that  hundreds  of  thousands  of  stout 
hearts  would  come  to  our  assistance  on  the  wings  of  steam  preceded  by 
the  messenger  of  lightning,  should  we  unhappily  ever  need  such  help. 

It  might  be  that  they  would  mostly  be  composed  of  what  he  calls  the 
“cowardly  and  degraded  elements,”  the  same  elements  that  filled 
your  armies  for  the  defense  of  the  Union  and  which  filled  the  ranks  of 
thp  defenders  of  the  Constitution  after  the  Union  was  saved;  but,  for 
the  sake  of  our  common  kindred  and  common  glory,  I  believe  that 
there  would  be  no  such  feeling  and  no  party  division  in  such  a  crisis. 
But,  Mr.  President,  we  shall  not  need  to  call  for  help;  we  could  manage 
such  a  war  without  assistance.  Had  the  Senator  been  a  participant  in 
or  a  critical  observer  even  of  the  last  one,  he  would  know  that  the 
eleven  Southern  States,  which,  though  much  divided  among  themselves, 
unaided  and  alone  kept  the  whole  power  of  the  Union,  with  its  un¬ 
limited  forces  and  untold  treasure,  at  bay  for  four  long  years,  could 
easily,  with  the  aid  of  the  great  border  States,  overcome  seven  millions 
of  negroes.  Then  there  would  be  a  solution  of  the  negro  problem  that 
would  stay  solved. 

But  a  great  mistake  is  made  by  those  who  assume  that  the  whites 
exercise  no  influence  over  the  negroes  except  by  force  or  fraud.  The 
black  man  is  attached  to  the  South  and  to  the  great  body  of  its  people. 


12 


The  behavior  of  the  blacks  since  their  freedom  has  in  the  main  been 
good  and  gentle.  All  things  considered,  it  has  been  wonderful.  I  be¬ 
lieve  I  can  say  with  truth  that  I  have  no  personal  knowledge  of  the 
occurrence  of  any  riot  or  public  disturbance  anywhere  in  the  South  be¬ 
tween  the  races  that  was  not  at  the  instigation  of  some  white  scoundrel; 
and  in  every  case  the  blacks  have  got  the  worst  of  the  fray,  being 
deserted  invariably  by  their  cowardly  white  allies  when  the  bullets 
began  to  fly. 

The  negroes  know  this,  aud  are  well  aware  that  the  interference  of 
outside  friends  has  always  inured  to  their  disadvantage.  They  know, 
too,  that  however  arbitrary  and  determined  to  rule  his  own  country  the 
white  man  has  been  to  them,  that  he  has  yet  never  deceived  them  by 
lying  to  them  and  making  promises  which  he  neither  could  perform 
nor  intended  to  perform,  whilst  from  the  days  of  reconstruction  they 
have  been  the  victims  alike  of  Northern  scoundrels  for  their  personal 
profit,  and  of  political  demagogues  for  their  own  aggrandizement;  from 
the  selling  of  Yankee  unguents  to  make  their  hair  straight,  or  painted 
pegs  with  which  to  secure  land,  as  was  said  they  did  in  our  Peedee  country, 
where  some  of  the  finest  bottom  lands  were  staked  off  at  a  dollar  a 
peg,  guarantied  by  the  United  States  Government  to  hold  forty  acres 
for  every  f  ur  pegs  against  any  rebel  in  the  South;  to  the  passage  of 
civil-rights  bills  tor  the  purpose  of  hoisting  them  into  positions  of  so¬ 
cial  equality  with  the  whites.  They  know,  too,  that  when  they  are  in 
any  kind  of  trouble  they  do  not  send  North  to  a  professional  friend  or 
philanthropist  for  help,  but  they  search  at  once  for  old  master  aud  mis¬ 
tress,  or  some  one  of  old  master’s  children.  There,  I  thank  God,  in 
nineteen  cases  out  of  twenty,  they  find  the  help  they  ask. 

As  among  the  white  people  there  are  good  and  bad,  it  is  so  among 
the  colored.  Naturally  the  proportion  of  bad  among  the  latter  is 
greater  than  in  the  former,  but  still  there  is  a  very  large  percentage  in¬ 
deed  who  would  scorn  to  wage  a  barbarous  warfare  against  their  white 
friends,  even  should  the  white  man  get  off  the  safety-valve.  I  venture 
the  prophecy  that  should  the  South  ever  be  engaged  in  another  war  her 
colored  citizens  would  crowd  into  the  ranks  of  her  armies  in  numbers 
fully  proportioned  to  the  black  population.  I  think  our  Northern 
friends  who  so  glibly  undertake  to  set  tle  the  negro  question  have  yet  to 
make  the  acquaintance  of  the  negro  himself.  Their  judgment  of  him 
is  formed  manifestly  by  the  class  that  swarm  around  this  capital  city, 
and  whose  inconvenient  presence  caused  the  suppression  of  the  suffrage 
of  this  District.  You  listen  to  the  few  who  come  here  to  make  traffic  of 
their  wrongs,  and  in  turn  you  endeavor  to  make  profit  for  your  party 
by  legislation  directed  towards  those  supposed  wrongs. 

You  acknowledge  yourselves  mistaken  as  to  the  results  of  reconstruc¬ 
tion.  Many  of  your  people  now  lavor  the  withdrawal  of  the  repre¬ 
sentation  in  Congress  which  their  numbers  have  given  the  South.  Is 
it  not  possible  that  you  are  again  mistaken  as  to  the  nature  of  the  evils 
which  affect  them  and  what  would  be  best  for  them?  When  you  as¬ 
sume  that  because  they  mostly  profess  your  polities  and  vote  your 
tickets  that,  therefore,  they  are  in  a  state  of  discontent  that  threatens 
at  any  moment  to  break  forth  in  a  bloody  uprising,  may  you  not  be  mis¬ 
taken  in  the  extent  of  your  influence  over  them?  Are  you  not  aware 
of  the  difficulty,  the  constant  tutelage,  and  the  vast  amount  of  money 
you  are  compelled  to  enmloy  to  keep  them  in  subjection  to  a  party 
whose  active  aud  respectable  corporation  is  as  far  distant  from  them 
as  its  promises  are  from  its  performance;  whilst  the  Democratic  party, 


« 


13 


composed  of  the  white  men  of  the  South,  are  their  neighbors,  landlords, 
and  employers? 

Mr.  President,  what  is  the  so-called  negro  problem  ?  As  I  understand 
it,  it  is  one  that  can  not  be  solved  by  speculation  or  legislation;  but 
it  is  a  question  that  will  be  settled  by  nature  herself,  if  her  laws  are  not 
interfered  with  by  the  folly  and  passion  of  men.  Nature  will  solve  it 
as  she  does  waste,  destruction,  and  all  incongruities.  It  may  be  thus 
stated:  Given  a  high-spirited,  liberty  loving,  cultivated,  and  dominat¬ 
ing  race,  occupying  a  free  state  of  their  own  establishment,  under  in¬ 
stitutions  of  their  own  creation,  full  of  activity,  energy,  and  progress; 
with  them,  under  the  same  laws,  possessed  of  absolute  legal  equality, 
dwells  an  inferior  race,  manumitted  slaves  of  recently  barbaric  origin, 
with  no  race  traditions,  with  no  history  of  progress,  but  lately  invested 
with  these  unaccustomed  and  unearned  franchises — how  shall  the  two 
be  made  to  dwell  together  in  fraternity  and  progress? 

This  is  the  question.  It  is  a  principle  of  our  law,  fundamental  in  its 
nature,  that  the  majority  of  those  to  whom  the  franchise  is  committed 
shall  rule  within  limits.  Is  it  a  principle  of  natural  law,  as  old  as 
man  himself,  that  the  stronger  shall  rule  without  limit.  What  is 
strength  in  a  state?  Other  things  being  equal  numbers  give  strength; 
but  in  the  States  of  the  South,  whose  conduct  is  complained  of,  other 
things  are  far  from  equal.  The  whites  where  not  actually  in  superior 
numbers  are  yet  possessed  of  far  superior  knowledge,  courage,  skill  in 
the  use  of  weapons  and  tools,  race  pride,  traditions,  experience  of  affairs, 
and  self-control.  Placing  these  two  side  by  side,  is  it  not  as  sure  as 
certainty  can  be  made  that  one  will  outstrip  the  other  and  control  it? 
Nature  would  reverse  all  her  own  decisions  if  it  were  not  so. 

If  the  weaker  be  in  the  way  of  the  stronger  the  former  will  be  re¬ 
moved.  If  two  men  start  on  a  journey,  the  pace  is  regulated  by  the 
slower,  if  they  be  compelled  to  keep  together;  and,  however  great  the 
powers  of  the  swifter,  if  compelled  to  wait  for  his  feebler  brother,  his 
powers  are  of  no  more  use  than  if  he  had  them  not.  Naturally,  he  will 
drop  his  brother  behind  and  stride  forward,  The  attempt  to  restrain 
him  by  legislation  is  unnatural  and  he  will  resent  it.  To  say  that  the 
superior  race  shall  not  by  its  superior  knowledge  and  virtue  rule  the 
inferior,  is  to  say  that  weakness  shall  control  strength,  that  ignorance 
and  vice  shall  control  knowledge  and  virtue.  To  attempt  by  legisla¬ 
tion  to  place  ignorance  and  vice  in  control  of  knowledge  and  virtue  be¬ 
cause  of  the  superior  numbers  of  the  ignorant,  would  be  to  enact  that  the 
civilization  of  great  races  shall  not  enjoy  the  power  and  influence  with 
which  God  has  endowed  them;  that  three  weak  men,  however  ignorant 
and  debased,  shall  forever  control  twTo  white  men,  however  wise  and 
virtuous. 

The  mere  statement  of  the  proposition  shows  that  it  is  hostile  to  the 
highest  natural  and  moral  laws  which  have  been  impressed  upon  man 
and  constitute  the  basis  of  his  civilization. 

Mr.  President,  I  know  the  negro  well.  I  was  born  and  reared  among 
them,  and  have  all  my  life  lived  in  close  association  with  them.  I 
affirm  to  .you,  not  that  he  is  incapable  of  civilization,  but  that  he  is  in¬ 
capable  of  attaining  to  and  keeping  up  with  the  civilization  of  the  race 
to  which  wre  belong.  At  the  very  best,  his  reflnement  must  be  of  a  low 
order  compared  to  ours.  Any  attempt,  therefore,  to  force  him  into 
equality  with  us  in  the  race  of  progress  can  result  in  nothing  else  but 
the  retarding  of  the  advancement  of  the  Southern  whites.  Those  who 
have  determined  to  subject,  at  all  hazards,  to  negro  rule  those  States 
of  the  South  where  they  are  in  superior  numbers,  have  simply  deter- 


14 


mined  that  the  white  man’s  progress  shall  be  measured  by  the  negro’s, 
if,  indeed,  it  does  not  result  in  explosion  and  mutual  destruction.  Fair- 
minded  men  everywhere  may  accept  this  as  truth.  The  sons  of  Ham 
have  had  the  same  opportunities  that  the  sons  of  Shem  and  Japheth 
have  had.  No  where  have  they  improved  them. 

I  know  not  whether  I  should  give  credence  to  the  oft-repeated  alle¬ 
gation  that  they  are  forever  feeling  the  effect  of  their  ancestor’s  ?surse, 
but  this  I  do  know,  that  they  have  been  in  close  contact  with  every  civ¬ 
ilization  of  which  we  have  any  knowledge;  with  the  oldest  Egyptian, 
the  Assvro-Babylonian,  the  Grecian,  the  Roman,  and  the  modern;  in 
each  of  them  we  read  of  his  presence  and  in  every  instance  he  was  a 
slave. 

He  learned  nothing  for  the  benefit  of  his  race  from  his  civilized  mas¬ 
ters  in  all  these  ages.  He  has  made  more  progress  in  one  hundred  years 
as  a  Southern  slave  than  he  made  in  all  the  five  thousand  years  inter¬ 
vening  from  his  creation  until  his  landing  on  these  shores. 

He  has  no  type  now  living  on  this  earth  equal  to  those  of  the  present 
generation  who  were  born  and  raised  in  the  slave  States  of  America. 
All  of  which  should  be  considered  by  those  who  have  philosophy  and 
fairness  enough  to  look  at  the  matter  in  some  other  light  than  the  ne¬ 
cessities  of  the  Republican  party  in  the  next  campaign. 

The  fact  dwelt  upon  by  the  Senator  from  Kansas  concerning  their 
behavior  towards  their  masters  during  the  war  is  fully  admitted.  It 
is  a  strong  argument  to  prove  either  that  they  were  unfitted  for  the 
great  boon  of  liberty  or  that  the  horrid  stories  of  inhuman  treatment 
by  their  masters  were  lies.  I  am  not  only  willing  but  anxious  to  have 
justice  done  them  in  everything,  and  to  do  all  that  may  be  required  of 
me  to  aid  them  in  the  difficulties  of  their  position;  but  I  am  not  will¬ 
ing  that  they  should  rule  me  or  my  people.  It  is  my  pride  that  my 
State  has  been  just  to  them  and  generous,  and  that  in  the  adjusting  of 
the  new  order  of  things  after  their  enfranchisement  I  had  no  inconsid¬ 
erable  hand  in  providing  those  laws  and  institutions  which  have  made 
them  comparatively  well  content  in  North  Carolina. 

I  believe  them  incapable,  tor  many  reasons,  of  properly  controlling 
public  affairs,  but  I  do  believe  them  capable  of  making  valuable  citi¬ 
zens  under  the  wiser  control  of  the  whites.  My  solution  of  the  prob¬ 
lem  is  simply,  “Hands  off.”  Let  no  man  be  afraid  that  if  the  North¬ 
ern  people  cease  their  interference  the  negroes  will  be  driven  to  the 
wall.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  your  interference  that  causes  or  aggravates 
whatever  of  trouble  is  inflicted  upon  them. 

Such  is  the  nature  of  man.  We  prefer  to  do  things  of  our  own  voli¬ 
tion  that  we  would  refuse  to  do  at  the  dictation  of  those  who  have  no 
right  to  order.  Within  my  memory  as  a  child  there  was  a  strong  and 
growing  anti-slavery  party  in  North  Carolina,  headed  by  many  of  our 
greatest  and  most  honored  citizens,  some  of  whom  sat  in  these  seats 
before  me.  Orations  against  slavery  and  its  consequences  were  freely 
delivered,  and  with  applause,  before  the  classes  of  our  university.  This 
cause,  under  the  influence  of  its  greatadvocates,  would  soon  haveclaimed 
a  majority  of  the  voters  of  North  Carolina,  but  those  fiery  zealots  of  the 
North,  who,  as  Carlyle  says,  were  so  anxious  to  serve  God  that  they  took 
the  devil  into  partnership  with  them,  began  their  interference.  A  cru¬ 
sade  against  slavery  and  slave-holding,  in  defiance  of  legal  rights,  was 
begun  and  kept  up  uas&il  so  far  was  the  cause  of  emancipation  over¬ 
thrown  that  twenty-five  years  after  these  same  great  and  honored  North 
Carolinians  would  have  suffered  insult  and  violence  for  repeating  their 
orations.  Men  will  not  be  bullied  eveu  into  doing  right.  Know,  there- 


15 


fore,  that  every  speech  you  make,  every  law  von  enact  denunciatory  of 
or  punitive  against  the  Southern  people,  with  a  view  to  subject  them 
to  the  rule  of  their  emancipated  slaves,  defers  indelinitely  that  state 
of  cordial  harmony  between  whites  and  blacks  which  is  so  necessary 
to  both. 

There  is  another  way  by  which,  in  my  opinion,  you  also  do  the  ne¬ 
groes  a  great  damage  by  your  constant  interference.  You  do  nothing 
to  increase  the  cordiality  between  them  and  their  white  neighbors. 
\  ou  know  that  their  well-being  depends  upon  their  being  on  good  terms 
with  their  landlords  and  employers  more  than  upon  anything  else;  yet 
you  are  constantly  endeavoring  to  drive  a  wedge  between  them  and  to 
push  them  further  apart.  You  endeavor  to  make  them  look  altogether 
to  you  tor  help.  You  have  coddled  them  so  long  and  made  them  so 
many  promises  that  they  have  ceased  to  rely  upon  their  own  exertions 
and  have  come  to  believe  that  it  is  the  duty  of  others  to  provide  for 
them.  No  greater  injury  could  be  done  to  any  people. 

The  historian  of  the  Spanish  conquests  in  America,  Arthur  Helps, 
remarks  that  the  considerate  and  gentle  regulations  provided  lor  the 
Indians  of  the  Pearl  coast  by  the  benevolent  Las  Casas  ‘  ‘  proved  a  sad  re¬ 
straint  upon  the  energies  of  the  race,  as  no  man  leans  long  on  any  per¬ 
son  or  thing  without  losing  some  of  his  original  power  and  energy.” 
You  have  legislated  and  amended  constitutions  for  him,  denounced  your 
neighbors,  and  glorified  the  negro  and  officially  wept  over  his  condition 
until  you  have  to  a  very  great  extent  made  him  a  “dodder,  ”  a  parasitic 
animal  without  support  in  self-respect  or  self-reliance,  a  class  of  men 
which  of  all  others  is  least  desirable  in  a  progressive  community. 

Any  new  set  of  conditions — 

Says  the  philosopher,  Ray  Lankester — 

occurring  to  an  animal  which  render  its  food  and  safety  very  easily  attained 
seem  to  lead,  as  a  rule,  to  degeneration. 

Applying  this  principle  in  nature  to  the  moral  world,  Henry  Drum¬ 
mond  says: 

Any  principle  which  secures  the  safety  of  the  individual  without  personal 
effort  or  the  vital  exercise  of  faculty  is  disastrous  to  moral  character. 

Suppose  you  trust  the  Southern  people  forawhile  ?  You  can  not  be¬ 
lieve  that  any  considerable  number  of  them  desire  to  do  wrong  or  to 
treat  the  negroes  unjustly?  If  you  say  you  trust  them  and  withhold 
your  interference,  public  sentiment,  with  a  power  that  can  not  be  re¬ 
sisted,  will  soon  enforce  State  laws  and  constitutional  amendments  in 
a  manner  that  will  satisfy  all  honest  men;  not  perfunctorily,  but  with 
cheerful  zeal. 

I  regret  exceedingly  that  I  can  not  support  the  bill  of  the  Senator 
from  South  Carolina.  My  objection  to  it  is  on  the  ground  of  imprac¬ 
ticability.  It  would  result  in  no  relief;  few  negroes  would  go  from 
the  country  under  its  provisions  and  those  would  probably  be  the  best. 

1  can  not  say  that  I  have  any  desire  to  attempt  in  any  way  so  great 
and  unbistorical  a  task  as  removing  a  whole  people,  amounting  prob¬ 
ably  to  7,000,000.  Their  presence  among  ns,  of  course,  I  regret.  I 
should  be  happy  to  know  that  there  was  notone  of  them  in  the  United 
States  to  be  the  unwilling  cause  of  everlasting  contention  between  our 
people.  But  they  are  here,  and  I  for  one  am  willing  to  do  my  best  to 
live  with  them  in  harmony.  I  can  well  see,  however,  and  appreciate 
the  motive  of  the  honorable  Senator  in  taking  this  action.  I  know  how 
his  State  has  been  weighed  down  in  the  past  by  this  incubus  and  how 
dark  the  future  of  his  people  must  appear  under  the  ever-threatening 


10 


danger  of  a  recurrence  to  the  carnival  of  corruption  and  misruxe  of 
1868-’ 69  and  1-70. 

So  far  as  the  evil  may  be  capable  of  remedy  by  removal  of  any  kind, 
I  would  suggest  that  it  is  perfectly  practicable  to  induce  these  people 
to  settle  in  the  various  States  of  this  Union  which  now  have  few  or  no 
colored  people.  There  is  ample  room  for  them  throughout  the  Northern 
and  Northwestern  States,  each  one  of  which  could  receive  enough  to  re¬ 
lieve  the  pressure  entirely  upon  those  States  in  the  South  whose  progress 
is  about  to  be  destroyed,  and  yet  not  inconveniently  interfere  with  the 
well-being  of  any  Northern  State.  Besides,  if  the  presence  of  negroes 
in  superior  numbers  does  amount  to  a  positive  evil  in  the  South,  I  sub¬ 
mit  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  other  States  to  assist  them  in  removing  or 
so  distributing  the  evil  that  it  shall  be  harmless.  If  the  negro  is  a  good 
thing  we  are  willing  to  divide  him  up.  [Laughter.]  There  is  plenty 
of  him  to  go  round. 

Nothing  is  wanting  to  the  execution  of  this  suggestion  except  the  con¬ 
sent  of  these  Northern  States.  One-half  of  the  inducements  and  the  solici¬ 
tations  which  they  hold  out  to  foreigners,  if  extended  to  the  negroes  of 
the  South,  would  within  ten  years  draw  such  numbers  of  them  as  to 
leave  all  the  Southern  States  with  decided  white  majorities;  and  it  is 
well-known  that  there  is  little  or  no  complaint  of  the  mistreatment  of 
negroes  where  there  are  white  majorities.  This  would  equalize  the  con¬ 
ditions  of  all  the  States.  The  introduction  of  large  numbers  of  the 
colored  race  into  every  Northern  State  would  be  equivalent  to  an  amend¬ 
ment  to  the  Constitution  and  would  restrain  you  effectually  from  the 
passage  of  any  laws  or  the  attempting  of  any  kind  of  interference  that 
would  discriminate  between  the  States  of  the  American  Union  on  ac¬ 
count  of  their  locality  or  previous  condition  of  slavery.  It  would  fa¬ 
miliarize  the  masses  of  your  people  with  the  negro,  his  capacities,  his 
habits,  and  his  needs,  and  you  neither  would  nor  could  then  strike  any 
rindictive  blows  at  the  Southern  people  without  its  immediately  re¬ 
acting  upon  yourselves. 

As  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  become  homogeneous  by  all  being  white, 
this  plan  would  make  it  quite  possible  for  us  to  become  homogeneous 
by  ali  being  partly  white  and  partly  co  ored,  retaining  white  majorities 
in  each  State.  North  Carolina,  Virginia,  Georgia,  Tennessee,  Arkansas, 
and  Texas  would  need  not  to  surrender  any  of  their  colored  people, 
and  it  would  only  require  the  removal  of  about  500, 000  blacks  from  the 
States  of  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Alabama,  Florida,  and  South  Carolina 
to  give  every  State  in  the  Union  such  a  decided  preponderance  of  whites 
as  to  remove  all  danger  of  negro  supremacy,  and  all  fear  of  trouble 
from  this  source. 

What  say  the  Republican  Senators  to  this?  Of  course  you  will  say 
that  your  doors  are  open  now  to  all  who  may  see  proper  to  come,  but 
that  is  not  sufficient  to  induce  them  to  remove.  Are  you  willing  to 
offer  them  some  special  inducement?  Are  you  willing  to  vote  money 
out  of  the  United  States  Treasury  to  pay  their  expenses  and  to  support 
them  for  a  short  time  until  they  can  get  a  start  in  their  new  homes? 
Surely,  you  will -demonstrate  your  sincerity  in  some  practical,  helpful 
way,  and  not  confine  your  benevolent  statesmanship  to  cheap  words. 
If  you  will  help  neither  black  nor  white,  you  should,  in  common  de¬ 
cency,  hold  your  peace. 

O 


w  - 


S0L1NET/ASERL  PROJECT 


